July, 2012

As anyone who has married friends will tell you, no matter how funny it is to let said friend complain about how terrible/annoying/insufferable their wife is, you are never to make fun of said wife unless given a direct order to do so. Apparently something of this nature went down between Kevin Randleman and Matt Riddle recently, as Randleman recently unleashed nothing short of a deluge of threats aimed at Riddle over Twitter, citing alleged comments Riddle had made to his wife as his reasoning for wanting to “rip a piece off” the TUF 7 alum.

Just check out the anger in the tweets that await you after the jump. A line has clearly been crossed.

(If you must ask, Dana, I believe my hype train was headed in that general direction. Then again, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it…)

If you’re anything like us, you’ve more than likely spent your weekend drinking either Budweiser or Miller High Life cans in front of your television whilst watching various Olympic events and screaming “America!” on loop until your Canadian or Russian neighbors got jealous and called the police, who in turn tried to claim that you are somehow at fault if you like to watch TV in the nude and can’t afford curtains. And indeed, the Olympics have successfully managed to captivate and connect its viewing audience as it always does, uniting entire communities over a common passion. Except, oddly enough, in the case of this year’s host country, wherein failure apparently opens you up to disturbingly hateful critiques from your own countrymen.

Switching gears, it seems that one thing we can all agree on, regardless of our cultural divisions, is the inherent ridiculousness in the possibility that Brandon Vera could somehow receive a title shot if he is able to defeat Mauricio Rua in impressive fashion, or vice versa. We know we’ve been a little hard on him today – it’s not like it was his decision to overhype a fight by implying title implications only to be reamed out by fans for doing so shortly thereafter, that was Dana White — but on the short list of contenders currently in the Light Heavyweight Division, Vera is just a step above Mostapha al-Turk, whom you may recall is a retired heavyweight who was released from the UFC over two years ago. And he’s fighting Shogun f*cking Rua, aka the man who ended The Machida Era. Arguably twice.

Spoiler: There is no way in hell that Vera is beating Shogun this Saturday, and we’d be willing to wager a bottle of ipecac on it, if you know what we mean. So in honor of what has been a highly competitive Olympic games thus far, and what will surely be a one sided ass whooping at UFC on FOX 4, here are 10 things, ranked in no particular order, we will more than likely see happen at this year’s Olympics than “The Truth” beating “Shogun” on Saturday.

We’re just a few days away from UFC on FOX 4, which will be headlined by arguably the most confusing contender fight in modern UFC history. While most fans can kind of justify Shogun earning a title shot with a victory given his track record (especially if Hendo manages to put away Jones at UFC 151), Brandon Vera remains a gigantic question mark. With his most notable victory being a TKO over heavyweight Frank Mir back in 2006, it’s hardly a surprise that most fans and pundits are completely unable to make sense of this bout even headlining the card, yet alone being for a title shot.

If Brandon Vera attempted to justify all of this through his appearance on “Inside MMA,” he ended up just raising even more questions. Case in point: Vera talked about his training camp leading up to his bout with “Shogun” Rua. Aside from bringing back his Muay Thai coaches and sparring with Alexander Gustafsson, Vera commented that he was ”doing the things he should have been doing since day one.” Specifically, he’s actually caring now about his career. As he told the “Inside MMA” crew:

UFC featherweight Cole Miller (18-6) doesn’t mince words and isn’t initially open to reflection today. He’s on his way from Miami’s international airport to Los Angeles, where he will fight Nam Pham this Saturday, August 4th, on the preliminary card of UFC on Fox: Shogun vs. Vera.

Traveling is hardly ever any fun, and it must be less so for someone cutting weight, as Miller is. And when he’s asked what he may have learned from his last fight, a loss to Steven Siler in March, Miller is hard on himself.

“I wouldn’t say I learned anything from that fight. I just looked like shit,” he deadpans. “I moved backwards too much, I tried to counter too much, which is not really my game. I don’t know why I did that.”

Miller has never lost two fights in a row in his MMA career — and admits to a certain pride in that — but says that these days, losing at all is not acceptable. “When I was younger [losing two in a row] really meant that you didn’t learn from your previous mistake or didn’t work hard enough. Now its more of a, ‘losing sucks, period,’ feeling,” he says.

It’s good to know that we weren’t alone in our confusion when it was announced that the winner of either the Mauricio Rua/Brandon Vera or Lyoto Machida/Ryan Bader bouts, specifically the former, would be in line for the next title shot at 205 lbs. Given that current champion Jon Jones has walked through all four of those gentlemen before, we struggled to find the reasoning behind the alleged title shot that supposedly awaited the most impressive winner from this weekend’s UFC on FOX 4 event. Then again, Rich Franklin has decided to chase after middleweight gold and revenge for a third time (which totally wont end in his untimely death), so maybe we were too quick to write off these former champions, TUF winners, and hype machines. In either case, Bones took to his Twitter account to voice his frustration, sending out the above tweet yesterday which simply states “Scratching my head.”

But perhaps even more confounding than the UFC’s apparent apathy in regards to JBJ was the realization that the light heavyweight division, one of the most stacked and competitive divisions in the UFC for some time, has nearly been cleared out in a little over a year. If Jones gets past Dan Henderson at UFC 151, something he obviously feels he is going to do as evidenced by the above tweet, there will arguably be only two viable candidates left for him to face: Alexander Gustafsson and Glover Teixeira.

Dana White has teased that the man known by the Potato Nation as “Bjones” is “ready for a big fight now”, leading us to believe that a meeting with Rashad Evans could be on the horizon. A victory over the former champ would all but cement the Swede’s position atop the division. As for Teixeira, it’s simply too early to tell. He looked great in his debut victory over Kyle Kingsbury, but needs to face at least one of the upper echelon fighters before we are convinced he is ready for a title shot. But for the moment, it appears that the LHW division needs an H-bomb like Nick Diaz needs a clue.

Yes, there is a woman in the world who could love this man. Her name is Rose Namajunas, and she’s a straw-weight MMA fighter who upped her record to 4-0 on June 30th with a 33-second domination of Jen Aniano Rose at a King of the Cage event in Wisconsin. Check out the beatdown above, and get to know Rose a little better in the videos after the jump…

In what will either make for a triumphant or disastrous turning point in Eddie Alvarez’s career (specifically, his marketability), the former Bellator lightweight champion has been booked to take on Brazilian knockout artist Patricky “Pitbull” Freire at Bellator 75, which goes down on October 12th at Caesar’s Windsor in Canada.

After collecting seven straight wins under the Bellator banner (6 by way of stoppage), Alvarez lost his lightweight strap in dramatic fashion, falling prey to a fourth round submission in a battle for the ages at Bellator 58 to Michael Chandler. Most recently, Alvarez earned some much sought after revenge when he battered and dispatched Shinya Aoki in the first round of their Bellator 66 throwdown, and immediately began making his case for a potential spot amongst the UFC’s ever growing lightweight roster thereafter. It just goes to show what beating up a man in multi-colored pastel tights can do for one’s confidence.

Over the last ten years, we’ve watched Mauricio “Shogun” Rua go from young phenom to living legend. Though injuries and and controversial judging have occasionally slowed his momentum during the second half of his career, Shogun enters next weekend’s UFC on FOX 4 matchup with Brandon Vera as a standard-bearer for his generation of fighters, and is still considered among the elite of the light-heavyweight division.

In honor of Rua’s continuing legacy, we’ve picked out the 16 videos that best summarize his journey as a fighter — from the past to the present, from his most unforgettable triumphs to his most crushing defeats. Enjoy, and pay your respects in the comments section.

Mauricio Rua vs. Rodrigo Malheiros de Andrade. Shot in 1998 when Rua was just 16 years old, this footage shows the future PRIDE/UFC star competing in a Muay Thai smoker in somebody’s house in Curitiba, Brazil. Though Shogun shows flashes of his trademark aggression, his technique hasn’t quite blossomed yet, and he winds up getting head-kick KO’d at the video’s 7:15 mark.

Mauricio Rua vs. Rafael Freitas, Meca World Vale Tudo 7, 11/8/02. Rua was 20 years old when he made his official MMA debut against Rafael “Capoeira” Freitas, who was tenacious in his attempts to put Shogun on his back. But Freitas couldn’t keep him there, and the standup exchanges were lopsided in Rua’s favor. After a few minutes of abusing his opponent with knees, punches, and stomps, Shogun finally puts Freitas out cold with a head-kick.

We don’t mean to sound harsh, but come October 13th, the UFC will more than likely be severing its ties with 9-1 prospect Joey Gambino. As was the case with guys like Antonio Silva and the poor saps who made it onto our “Cursed From Birth” list, it seems that the UFC doesn’t want to give “The Raging Warrior” a rebound match or a chance to develop in the organization, and will sit idly by as he is pummeled into mincemeat on two separate occasions.

We don’t want to write the guy off (but are doing exactly that), but to put it simply, Gambino was basically filleted then submitted by TUF 14 veteran Steve Siler in his UFC debut at UFC on FX 4. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, now he’s been booked to face not only the winner of that season in his sophomore appearance, but the man who absolutely annihilated Siler (among others) in Diego Brandao. The world is truly an unjust place.

Then again, it’s not like Brandao has looked bulletproof since entering the UFC. He will also be looking to bounce back from a loss, which came at the hands of Darren Elkins at UFC 146. Despite stomping Elkins in the first round, Brandao looked visibly sluggish in the second and third, allowing Elkins to use his superior grappling to keep Brandao on the bottom en route to a unanimous decision loss. So maybe, just maybe, Gambino stands a chance here.

But probably not.

Check out a shoddily filmed video of Gambino’s UFC 146 bout with Siler after the jump and let us know if you agree or disagree.